Chapter 2
Zane
Her SUV sat in the driveway, a newer model Lexus LX with factory-fresh paint that still held a shine even under the overcast sky.
It looked about as out of place here in Red Oak Mountain as Mallory herself.
Running into her today had been the shock of my life.
She’d collided right into me, all her soft curves bouncing off my chest.
My dick hardened as I thought about how she’d stumbled into me outside Bookish, punching straight through every wall I’d spent twelve years building.
Seeing her had made my mouth go dry and my brain go sideways instantly.
Her lips had been painted a deep berry color that made me think things I had no business thinking about a married woman.
But it wasn’t just the way she looked after all these years that had knocked me sideways.
It was whatever she’d been trying to hide beneath her polished surface.
Her hands had shaken lightly when I handed her the resumes, and sadness peeked out of her eyes that had never been there before.
Not all was well in Mallory’s world, and every protective instinct I’d ever had roared back to life the second I saw that crack in her armor.
Mallory was the girl who’d stolen my heart and run away with it. The only woman who’d ever made my pulse beat faster.
Last I’d heard, she’d married a rich corporate lawyer and built a life in Chicago.
It was everything she’d always talked about wanting.
She’d gotten out. She’d made it.
So that led to the big question… where was her man now?
That thought sat heavy in my chest as I pushed the door open on my old F-250, its hinges creaking the way they had for the last hundred and sixty thousand miles.
The truck was dented along the passenger side from a falling oak limb two winters back, and the bed was stained with chainsaw oil. It was a working truck for a working man, and it fit this gravel driveway a hell of a lot better than her spotless Lexus did.
I grabbed my tool bag from behind the seat and walked up to the house.
It was in worse shape now than the last time I’d been out here, helping her dad with a project. From here I could see some of the fencing had fallen down in their pasture, maybe from the recent storm.
The porch was in sad shape, too.
Paint was peeling along the railing, and some of the boards sagged in the middle as I stepped on them. I’d heard her folks had fallen on hard times. It looked like it was true.
I knocked. Three solid raps.
The door opened almost instantly.
“Hey,” she said, a little breathless. “That was fast.”
“Wasn’t far.” I kept my voice level because that was what I did. I always stayed steady, in control, even when everything inside me was anything but that.
She didn’t look like a put-together city princess any longer.
The suit jacket was gone. Her white blouse was damp and clinging to her curves in a dangerous way. The high heels were gone, and she was barefoot on the old hardwood floor.
She looked older than the girl who’d left town and more polished, even in her current state of disarray, but there was a tiredness around her eyes I didn’t remember.
A fragility in the way she held herself that she was clearly fighting against, like if she relaxed for even a second the whole facade would come apart.
She’d been crying, or close to it. I could tell.
“Thanks for coming, Zane. I hope I didn’t interrupt dinner.”
“Naw.” I moved past her down the front hallway with electric awareness of the woman walking two steps behind me toward the kitchen.
Because here was the thing I was failing to manage.
Her blouse had gone transparent where the water had soaked through, and the outline of white lace was visible beneath it, highlighting the delicate pattern of her bra pressed against her skin.
I’d seen all that in the first second after she opened the door.
She followed me into the kitchen, rambling in that way she always used to do.
“It started as a drip and then I tried to tighten it and made everything worse,” she said, her voice tight with embarrassment as she gestured to the mess. Wet towels were piled on the floor in front of the sink, and the bucket underneath was already a quarter full.
“Happens all the time with these old fittings,” I said, keeping my tone easy as I set my tool bag down and crouched to look under the sink. Easier to think when I wasn’t looking at her. “Your dad’s been needing to replace these couplings for a while.”
“Yeah?” she knelt down to watch my work, putting herself back in my line of sight.
Her shirt clung to the full, heavy shape of her breasts, and my grip tightened on the wrench before I forced my eyes back to the pipe.
Then my eyes landed back on that view again just to confirm what I’d seen, my cock hardening in my jeans.
Yep. Her nipples were hard, pressing against the wet layers of silk and lace straining towards me.
Fuck me and my life. Mallory still held a spell over me.
Forcing my eyes back to the problem at hand, I found the shutoff valve and cranked it closed, then pulled the wrench and a replacement coupling from my bag. The dripping stopped, and in the sudden silence the kitchen felt smaller.
“You fixed it?”
“Naw. Just turned off the water. Take this bucket and dump it,” I told her as I pulled it out from under the sink.
Damn it. The space under the sink was dark. I fished my flashlight out of my bag.
When Mallory came back I asked her, “Can you hold this for me?”
I handed her the flashlight, and she knelt down beside me on the damp tile as I maneuvered my shoulders into the tight cabinet space.
She aimed it at the pipe junction, as I tried to ignore the warmth of her body next to mine, her knee barely an inch from my hip. I reached up to loosen the old coupling, and my arm shifted.
That’s when my forearm grazed the soft swell of her breast through the wet fabric. She sucked in a quick breath but didn’t move away.
“Sorry,” I muttered, not looking at her.
“It’s fine,” she warbled back.
It was not fine.
Nothing about this was fine.
I worked the wrench with more focus than the job required, but the cabinet was narrow and she was so close.
Every time I adjusted my angle, some part of my arm brushed against her again, the curve of her breast yielding and warm even through the damp silk. I kept my jaw locked and my eyes on the pipe while I tried to think about literally anything other than the woman kneeling six inches away from me.
Mallory had always been my kryptonite.
“Hand me the new coupling,” I growled, and she pressed it into my palm.
Our fingers touched. The same current from the sidewalk surged through me, hot and immediate, and my grip tightened around her fingers before I caught myself and pulled away.
I was half-hard in her parents’ kitchen, lying on my back under the sink like a teenager with no self-control.
And all because this woman, someone else’s wife, had brushed her fingers against mine.
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste copper and finished seating the new coupling with hands that were not quite as steady as they should have been.
Then I slid out from under the cabinet and turned the valve back on. Water flowed clean. No drip.
“That should hold for another decade,” I rumbled, standing and wiping my hands on my jeans.
Mallory stood too.
“Thank you, Zane. Seriously. What do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m paying you for the house call and the parts.”
“No, you’re not. I’m not a plumber. I just wanted to help you out.”
Our eyes held, and I added, “But I should go.”
Before I did something stupid and blew up her life.
“I insist,” she pressed a hundred-dollar bill into my hand, a nervous edge to her voice.
Then she crossed her arms over her chest, pressing her breasts higher against the wet blouse, which only made things worse.
But her next words took my mind right off the view I was trying to avoid. “You have a family to support, Zane.”
I cocked my head. “Family? You mean my mom?”
“No, I mean… Tina.” She hesitated, then added in a soft, careful voice, “And you must have kids by now.”
I stared at her blankly. She thought I was still married.
“Tina and I were married for less than a year. It’s been more than a decade. She’s on husband number three now.”
“Oh,” Mallory’s lips parted. “So you’re not… you’re…”
“Single.” I held her gaze and didn’t look away, letting the word land between us with the full weight of what it meant. “Have been for a long time.”
I watched the information move through her.
The air in the kitchen felt charged, and I took a half step closer because I couldn’t help it.
Twelve years was a long time to keep my distance, and I was so damn tired of trying.
“What about you?” I asked, my eyes locked onto hers. “Where’s your husband tonight, Mallory?”
Her eyes glistened.
“There’s no husband. We, I… divorced. I’m divorced. It’s new.”
From the look of it, the damage seemed to be fresh.
It made me feel like an asshole for sneaking a few glances at her tits.
“Sorry to hear that.”
“No, don’t be. He was an asshole. I’m glad to be done with him. But it was a rough ending.”
That explained her shaky disposition today.
“So, uh, you think I’ll get to see you again while I’m in town?” She looked so vulnerable standing there, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
And even though I knew I should get in my truck and drive away, I found myself rumbling out, “You said your folks are bringing back some cattle?”
“Yeah. They’re planning on eight.”
“Some of the fencing is down at the back of the property.”
“Yeah, I noticed that too.”
“Guess I better come back over to fix it.”
She gave me a shy smile. The same kind of smile she’d given me the first time she ever waited on my table all those years ago.
“Are you inviting me to a fence-fixing date on my parents’ property?”
Tension unfurled in my chest, drifting away.
A date with Mallory Carpenter. Who would have thought?
“Yup. I guess I am.”
After that I almost did kiss her, both of us leaning in too close, her lips parting as she tilted her chin up to me, her eyes sparkling for the first time today.
But then her phone rang.
And my head cleared.
She wasn’t staying.
Mallory would be gone soon, and the ache in my chest when that happened would swallow me whole.